The pumpkin-headed children are awake, a forbidden spellbook is causing problems, and Elvira herself has entered the chat. Here’s what to know before the Tubi Original arrives October 9. Spoilers Ahead!
Remind MeLast Halloween, R.L. Stine's Pumpkinhead introduced us to a town where ancient harvest curses can erase your sibling from everyone's memory and pumpkins are considerably less decorative than seasonal marketing would have you believe. Sam, Becka, and Rusty managed to make it through that nightmare. This October, the curse wants a rematch.
R.L. Stine's Pumpkinhead 2 premieres October 9 on Tubi, with returning writer-director Jem Garrard sending Redhaven back into supernatural trouble after bullied student Evan discovers a forbidden spellbook and accidentally awakens the pumpkin-headed children of the town's past sacrifices. As the Harvest Festival approaches, Sam and Becka are pulled back into the mystery, but this time with an entire town potentially on the line.
Also joining the nightmare? Cassandra Peterson, better known as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, playing a mysterious witch who may know exactly what everybody has unleashed. Somehow Redhaven's Halloween problems have officially required professional consultation.
R.L. Stine's Pumpkinhead made its curse painfully personal: Sam's younger brother Finn disappeared, and everyone except Sam forgot he'd ever existed.
The sequel opens that mythology considerably wider. Evan's spellbook doesn't summon one victim of the curse; it awakens children sacrificed throughout Redhaven's past, bringing the town's buried history above ground at exactly the wrong time. Sam and Becka already know the supernatural is real, but knowing what they're dealing with and knowing how to stop it are two very different assignments.
And now there's Cassandra. The mysterious witch enters with knowledge of ancient magic that could make her extremely useful once the Harvest Festival starts looking less like a celebration and more like a very bad place to be after dark.
“This curse wants Redhaven. It has to get through us first.”
Peterson steps into Redhaven as a mysterious witch with deep knowledge of the ancient magic surrounding the curse. Rather than simply recreating Elvira, Peterson gets a new character who arrives already knowing considerably more about the supernatural problem than the kids trying to survive it.
Reid returns as Sam with one major advantage over his first nightmare: he already knows Redhaven's curses are real. Reid gets to move the character from desperately trying to make people believe him toward someone who understands exactly how dangerous the town's supernatural history can become.
Lo is back as Becka, bringing Sam's friend and fellow curse-survivor into another Redhaven mystery. Becka already proved willing to believe Sam when his increasingly impossible story needed somebody in his corner, and the sequel puts that partnership back to work now that the threat has expanded far beyond Finn's disappearance.
Sebastian Billingsley-Rodriguez joins the story as Evan, a bullied student whose discovery of the forbidden spellbook accidentally wakes the Pumpkinheads. He's the newcomer who opens the door without understanding what's behind it, putting him directly at the center of the sequel's much bigger supernatural mess.
R.L. Stine's Pumpkinhead 2 premieres October 9 exclusively on Tubi, with Jem Garrard returning to write and direct.
The timing also puts the movie squarely inside Tubi's expanded horror world. Terror on Tubi became a year-round horror destination this year, with Pumpkinhead 2 joining the fall Original lineup after the first Pumpkinhead broke out in 2025 and landed on Variety's Streaming Original Movies Chart.
Need the Redhaven orientation before October 9? The original R.L. Stine's Pumpkinhead is already streaming free on Tubi, and our R.L. Stine watchlist has more gateway nightmares waiting while the curse gets itself organized.
The spellbook is open. The Pumpkinheads are awake. Redhaven, respectfully, good luck.
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